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The Big Three Out-Foxed

By

Noah Oppenheim

Updated June 11, 2004 12:01 a.m. ET

By today's standards, "Married... With Children" seems tame. But in 1989 the crude misadventures of Al Bundy and his dysfunctional family so outraged Terry Rakolta, a Michigan housewife, that she launched a national crusade to have the show taken off the air. A vast letter-writing campaign and an advertiser exodus later, "Married" had gone from modest success to ratings smash, and the upstart Fox network was suddenly a red-hot destination for the living-room remote.